Some of you may have seen my post about gaming hells over at the Risky Regencies or seen me tweeting about some of the research. One of the things I came across was a reference to maggot racing and how to cheat at it, and Meljean Brook and I had a hilarious twitter exchange about the story I said I was going to write: Miss Fiona Harper’s Night of Passion, in which Miss Fiona Harper’s brother accidentally kills his racing maggot and loses his sister to the notorious Lord Hawke.

I’m totally going to write that story as soon as I finish Surrender to Ruin. And so…

So, at the day job, we’ve just moved into new office space. I 99.98% love it. All the lights are LED and set to a really lovely, relaxing white. The walls are beautiful colors and there are areas where you could, conceivably, sit and pretend you’re at someone’s home about to have tea and cookies. There are tables with runners and vases and there’s lots of artwork most of which I like. Total win!

Except.

Almost everything is slightly off center. Most of the pictures are crooked to some degree or not hung in a way that doesn’t make me think, hold on here…. something is off. There’s a large space with a beautiful table in the center, and a couch and mirror in the center of the wall at one end. The table is placed off center to the mirror, and literally, everyone who walked by the first few times would stop and cock their heads … because it wasn’t quite right. Plus, the table has a fabric runner down the middle, very pretty, and a large vase in the center. Except the runner was not aligned to the exact center of the table. And the vase was not aligned in the center of the runner. There are, in fact, two other tables with runners and vases, also not aligned. And at the end of the one corridor that ends in a wall, they hung a tapestry, so so pretty! And it was crooked.

I discovered that my colleague also noticed the off-centeredness of everything and it was also driving him crazy. We had several conversations about the pictures that weren’t hung so it wasn’t just…. off. Anyway, I straightened all the vases and runners because it was driving me batty. My colleague helped me align one of them. Because he too was so bothered by it. He straightened some of the artwork. I couldn’t safely reach the tapestry so it continued to be just so slightly off center.

Then the painters had to put another coat of paint on the walls and all the artwork came down. Everything went back up, still mostly crooked. The tapestry, however, was now noticeably crooked. I said “Hey, colleague, look at that!” And we both were deeply unsettled.

And then!

One day I saw that the tapestry had been straightened. Yay!!! When I returned to my desk, I said to my colleague, “Good news! They straightened the tapestry!”

Today I had to drive to San Francisco to pick up my son who is home for Winter Break. He’s at a college an hour or so south of San Francisco aka through some the worst traffic in the country. Anyway, our agreement is that he gets himself to San Francisco and I’ll pick him up there. This time he didn’t take the bus. He took a different bus and a train. So I had to pick him up at a different spot than usual. He was coming with a friend who we were drop off on our way home, which is only relevant because there were witnesses.

Have I mentioned before that I am directionally deprived? Even with a GPS?

Anyway, I departed right from work and headed to San Francisco and as soon as I was in the city remembering how much I hate all the other people driving in traffic I came to a big old sign that said the street I was supposed to turn on (left or right or some direction or other) was CLOSED. So I detoured and then the stupid GPS started telling me to turn right on streets where you can’t turn right so after some horror and frustration I decided I was close enough (I wasn’t, actually) and I would park in the nearest parking garage and walk there to get them.

So I did this, and somehow I ended up in a part of the PARKING garage where they don’t actually let you park. And this guy is all snotty with me about me trying to turn around and then he says “you have to go up” So… right. I can’t find any arrows pointing up so I decided fine, I will leave the parking garage and try to find the train station only you can’t get out without paying and I wasn’t allowed to park anywhere and anyway someone ended up voiding my ticket and I was back where I was twenty effing minutes before still with no idea how to find the damn train station.

That’s right. I got lost in a parking garage.

So three times on my way to hell, the GPS is telling me I have arrived at my destination. (Nuh-uh!!) And my son is texting me that they are standing right across from a big Safeway and right then I see a Safeway!

Only it’s not clear how to get there and I took a wrong turn onto … actually the street I was looking for anyway. And there was a Starbucks with PARKING! (It’s a fucking miracle that there is free parking in downtown San Francisco — kind of South of Marketish I don’t really know for sure) so I parked at the Starbucks and told my son to find me.

::::hand waving:::::

There was some confusion, mostly my fault — imagine that– about directions and they walked the wrong way and NOBODY including me was dressed for San Francisco. It was cold. Because it happens the Safeway I saw was not the Safeway they were seeing. Then someone on twitter (you know who you are) said I needed a 12 digit grid cord and then they could find me. And what the hell Army thing is that? Because this person is in the Army. Meanwhile I paid $2.45 for a mint tea I didn’t want so I wouldn’t feel guilty about using the Starbuck’s bathroom.

So anyway an hour later they find me and we got the hell out of San Francisco.

And this is why I am NEVER the navigator. The upside is that by the time we were leaving traffic wasn’t hardly bad at all.

Hard experience has taught me to keep a spare keyboard around because I am an optimist. Despite knowing full well that water and keyboards don’t mix, I routinely keep a glass of water by my computer. THIS time and forever more I will be CAREFUL and not spill any water on my keyboard.

Last year I went through three keyboards, and the last time I spilled water … on Christmas Eve, I made it to the store in time to buy a keyboard of the sort that is kind to my hands and wrists. I didn’t have a spare because the Christmas Eve incident took out keyboard No. 2. Then, and I kid you not, shortly after that, I spilled water again. I ended up finding and having to use a spare Apple keyboard of the sort that looks awesome but functions as a torture device.

Magic?

It’s a bluetooth keyboard. As soon as I had money and time, I went off to the store and bought two more keyboards. For about a month everything was fine. And then all of a sudden, my new keyboard was typing all by itself. I watched in horror as random strings began to overwrite part of my chapter. MY WORDS!!!!!!! I got things shut down keyboard-wise and swapped in the spare. Again, for some time, everything was fine.

Then, again, the keyboard had a life and a mind of its own. Again, I watched as nothing I did stopped the magical appearance of strings of text, spaces and characters overwriting portions of my chapter.

I did what every good tech person does when something bizarre happens. I rebooted. Things were fine. But hmmm. This was strange and odd and inexplicable when actually, in tech, nothing is really random like that. I was often afraid to type. What if my keyboard went all wacky again and had to reconstruct, AGAIN, a paragraph of text?

Then, not too long after that, a “low battery” notice popped up on the iMac. Low battery? For a keyboard? What keyboard—

Oh.

The bluetooth keyboard that I had apparently left on a side table three feet from my computer. Powered on.

The bluetooth keyboard that my cat would occasionally jump on and even sit on.

Here at Jewel Central we play along with the NCAA March madness tournament, but in a way that doesn’t stop the fun. If we used a traditional method, we’d all be out in the first round.

Instead, we pick one round at a time for each of the tourneys (women’s and men). This way, every one has something at stake in every round. Feel free to play along. Last year we had a blast, along with snarky comments. Everyone welcome. You get bragging rights for every win!

Amazon is debuting a feature where when you look at a book, up at the top they show you books they feel are similar and that have better ratings.

Much I as I think Amazon is usually pretty smart about things, I’m not so sure about this one. I think it’s an attempt at curation — As in, “are you sure you want to buy a book with a 3-star rating when there are similar ones with 4.5 stars?” I guess we’ll see.

In the meantime, I thought I’d give everyone some advance help with my book My Darkest Passion. A paranormal romance of mine. It has 24 reviews with an average 4-star rating.

The characters in my book have psychic powers so if you’d rather have the power than read about others with such powers this may be the book for you. 4 star rating, but 34 reviews. (search term: “How to Be a Pyschic”)

4 star rating but 637 reviews. Note: Also considerably more expensive than the Kindle version of my book, but not too much more expensive than the print version. (search term: “How to deal with demons”)

I hope this is of some assistance. Other ideas? Let me know in the comments!